When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside and no Person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present. "Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial. Judgment and Punishment, according to law."1 The President shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur, and he shall nominate and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law." 2 "If no person have a majority of the electoral votes for Vice-President, then from the two highest members on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary for a choice." 3 These last powers will be discussed subsequently under the head of the executive. The remaining parts of the Constitution which refer to the Senate do so in connection with the House of Representatives and will be considered in their consecutive order.+ $74. 1 Constitution, Article I, Section 3. 2 Ibid., Article II, Section 2; infra. 3 Ibid., Twelfth Amendment; infra. 4 The functions of the Senate of the Republic of Mexico, besides those which are legislative, are thus defined in the Constitution (Art. 72, B): "The exclusive powers of the Senate are: "a. To approve the treaties and diplomatic conventions which the Executive may make with foreign powers. "b. To ratify the appointments which the President of the Republic may make of ministers, diplomatic agents, consuls-general, superior em ployés of the Treasury, colonels and other superior officers of the national army and navy, on the terms which the law shall provide. "c. To authorize the Executive to permit the departure of national troops beyond the limits of the Republic, the passage of foreign troops through the national territory, the station of squadrons of other powers for more than a month in the waters of the Republic. "d. To give its consent in order that the Executive may dispose of the national guard outside of their respective States or Territories, determining the necessary force. § 75. Origin of the Senate. The name of Senate is taken from the body which ruled ancient Rome; and its prototype was the body of senior warriors with "e. To declare, when the constitutional legislative and executive powers of a State shall have disappeared, that the case has arrived for appointing to it a provisional Governor, who shall call elections in conformity with the Constitutional laws of the said State. The appointment of Governor shall be made by the Federal Executive with the approval of the Senate, and in its recesses with the approval of the Permanent Commission. Said functionary shall not be elected Constitutional Governor at the elections which are had in virtue of the summons which he shall issue. "f. To decide political questions which may arise between the powers of a State, when any of them may appear with this purpose in the Senate, or when on account of said questions constitutional order shall have been interrupted during a conflict of arms. In this case the Senate shall dictate its resolution, being subject to the general Constitution of the Republic and to that of the State. "The law shall regulate the exercise of this power and that of the preceding. "g. To constitute itself a jury of judgment in accordance with Art. 105 of this Constitution." "Art. 105. The houses shall take cognizance of official crimes, the House of Deputies as a jury of accusation, the Senators as a jury of judgment. "The jury of accusation shall have for its object to declare, by an absolute majority of votes, whether the accused is or is not culpable. If the declaration should be absolutory, the functionary shall continue in the exercise of his office; if it should be condemnatory, he shall be immediately deprived of his office, and shall be placed at the disposal of the Senate. The latter, formed into a jury of judgment, and, with the presence of the criminal and of the accuser, if there should be one, shall proceed to apply, by an absolute majority of votes, the punishment which the law designates." Those of the Senate of the Republic of Colombia: "Art. 98. The Senate shall also be invested with the following powers: I. To reinstate those who have forfeited their citizenship. This act of clemency, according to the case and circumstances of him who solicits it, shall have reference only to electoral rights, or also to the capacity to fill determined public offices, or jointly to the exercise of all political rights. II. To appoint two members of the Council of State. III. To accept or decline the resignations of the president or vicepresident or the designato. IV. To confirm or reject nominations made by the President of the Republic of judges of the Supreme Court. V. To confirm or reject the military appointments made by the Government, from the rank of lieutenantcolonel to that of the highest offices in the army and navy. VI. To grant leave to the President of the Republic to be temporarily absent from the capital for other cause than sickness, or to exercise his functions outside of the capital. VII. To permit the passage of whom the king or chieftain held his councils of war; but in its legislative functions it resembles the Roman tribunate more closely than its name father,1 and its immediate model was the House of Lords. foreign troops through the territory of the Republic. commis VIII. To appoint the sioners referred to in Article 4 (surveyors of boundary lines). IX. To authorize the Government to declare war against another nation." Those of the Senate of the Republic of Ecuador: "Art. 45. The exclusive powers of the Senate are: 1. To take cognizance of and try, upon articles formulated by the Chamber of Deputies, cases of impeachment against the public functionaries spoken of in article 50. 2. To restore citizenship to any person who may have lost the same for whatever reason, except treason to the benefit of a hostile State or foreign invaders. 3. To restore, upon proof of innocence, the good name of those unjustly condemned." Those of the Senate of the Argentine Republic: "Art. LI. The Senate shall have the sole power to try in public the officials impeached by the Chamber of Deputies, and Senators, when sitting for that purpose, shall be sworn. When the impeached official is President of the nation the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside in the Senate. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present. "Art. LII. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, or disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the Nation; but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and sub ject to indictment, trial, and punishment, according to law, in and by the ordinary courts. "Art. LIII. It is also incumbent upon the Senate to authorize the President of the nation to declare a state of siege at one or more points in the national territory, in case of foreign aggression." In the Republic of France, by the law of February 24, 1875, Article 9: "The Senate may be constituted a Court of Justice to judge either the President of the Republie or the ministers, and to take cognizance of attacks made upon the safety of the State." For an account of the French Senate, see The Present Constitution of France, by R. Saleilles, Annals of American Association of Political and Social Science, vol. vi, p. 37. In the Republics of Venezuela, Chili and Brazil the Senate also tries impeachments. In Belgium impeachments are instituted by the lower house and tried before a Court of Appeal which consists of a joint meeting of both houses (Art. 90). In Brazil and Chili, the appointments of judges and diplomatic officers must be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. In Chili, certain officers cannot be removed without the consent of the Senate when it is in session; and the President must "command in person the inland and naval forces, in accord with the Senate, and during its recess, with the Standing Committee" (Art. 82. See Hancock, History of Chili, pp. 425-455). § 75. 1 The duties of the Roman Senate were chiefly executive (Maine, Popular Government, Essay IV). The bicameral system of legislation was due to a happy accident, the preference of the English clergy to vote their supplies in convocation rather than in Parliament.2 The three or four estates which gained the right to assemble on the continent of Europe were more subject to division and less capable of co-operation than the Lords and Commons, and so were unable to maintain their position against the court. The gentlemen of England in both houses usually stood together as long as the aggression of the king was to be feared; and their success made that legislative form the admiration of the philosophers of the eighteenth century. The colonial governors were aided by appointed councils, or in a few cases by a body of elected assistants, who reviewed the measures passed by the assemblies. They at first sat together, but a dispute over the ownership of a pig caused in Massachusetts a separation in 1644 which was imitated by the other colonies; and the lower houses used their studies of English history to assert that they were entitled to all the privileges of the House of Commons, including the control of bills of supply, and to insist that the councils had in that respect and as regards impeachments the same powers as the House of Lords.5 At the formation of the first State constitutions, the natural course was usually adopted: a continuance in imitation of the practice in the mother country and the colonies. The praise by Montesquieu of this part of the British Constitution and the recollection of the conduct of the Long Parliament during the suppression of the House of Lords, made the division of the legislative power popular.7 2 Supra, § 47. 3 See May, Constitutional History of England (Am. ed.), vol. i; ch. v. 4 Supra, § 47. 5 Moran, Rise and Development of the Bicameral System in America, Johns Hopkins University Studies, vol. xiii, pp. 211, 216. Chalmers, Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the American Colonies; supra, § 47, over note 27. 6 Poore's Charters and Constitutions. 7 "Several States, since the war, have experienced the necessity of a division of the legislature. Maryland was saved from a most pernicious measure by her Senate. A rage for paper money, bordering on madness, prevailed in their House of Delegates an emission of £500,000 was proposed; a sum equal to the circulating medium of the State. Had the sum been emitted, every shilling of specie would have been driven from circulation, and most of it from the State. Pennsylvania, Georgia and Vermont were the only States to establish legislatures with single chambers; and the action of the former was due to the personal preference and influence of Franklin. His remark that a legislature with two branches was like a wagon driven by a horse before and a horse behind, in opposite directions, is said to have carried the measure through the constitutional convention.8 The subsequent repetition by the French "The house of representatives in Connecticut, soon after the war, had taken offence at a certain act of Congress. The upper house, who understood the necessity and expediency of the measure better than the people, refused to concur in a remonstrance to Congress. Several other circumstances gave umbrage to the lower house; and to weaken or destroy the influence of the Senate, the representatives, among other violent proceedings, resolved not merely to remove the seat of government, but to make every county town in the State the seat of government, by rotation. This foolish resolution would have disgraced school-boys- the Senate saved the honor of the State by rejecting it with disdain - and within two months every representative was ashamed of the conduct of the house. All public bodies have these fits of passion, when their conduct seems to be perfectly boyish; and in these paroxysms, a check is highly necessary. "Pennsylvania exhibits many instances of this hasty conduct. At one session of the legislature, an armed force is ordered, by a precipitate resolution, to expel the settlers at Wyoming from their possessions — at a succeeding session, the same people are confirmed in their possessions. At one session, a charter is wrested from a corporation at another, restored. The whole State is split into parties-everything is decided by party — any proposition from one side of the house is sure to be damned by the otherand when one party perceives the other has the advantage, they play truant- and an officer or a mob hunt the absconding members in all the streets and alleys in town. Such farces have been repeated in Philadel phia and there alone. Had the legislature been framed with some check upon rash proceedings, the honor of the State would have been saved the party spirit would have died with the measures proposed in the legis lature. But now, any measure may be carried by party in the house; it then becomes a law, and sows the seeds of dissension throughout the state." (An examination into the leading principles of the Federal Constitution proposed by the late Convention held at Philadelphia, with answers to the people's objections that have been raised against the system. By a Citizen of America [by Noah Webster], pp. 11-12; Ford's Pamphlets on the Constitution, pp. 33-34.) 8 Adams, Defence of American Constitutions, vol. i, pp. 105-106; Story on the Constitution, § 537. |